Chapter 71 - Adding Salt to Injury (2/2)

For his last deep breath, Akira let out a big sigh. His expression loosened and returned back to his depressed face, which said that he hated himself.

Akira then spoke to Alpha through telepathy.

“…I’m sorry.”

It might be because he spoke through telepathy, all his guilty feelings and the other emotions inside him were sent to Alpha together with his apology. There was guilt, frustration, self-reproach, and grat.i.tude.

“Don’t worry about that.”

Alpha received all of those emotions sent to her and told Akira that it was not that big of a deal.

Akira started walking again, and Alpha walked beside him.

“I know it’s too late to say this, but I really am relying on you for everything, huh?”

“You can keep on relying more on me, you know? You can just ask me anything.”

“Even if you tell me so, I think I’m already relying more than enough on you. So like, rather than that, do you have anything that you want me to do for you?”

“Let’s see… I want you to not die until you can finish my request.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“Yep, that’s good.”

Akira sincerely apologized and Alpha smiled in satisfaction.

Akira arrived in front of Sheryl’s base, but he decided to head back home without entering the base. Although he had regained his calm, his mood was not fully recovered to his usual self yet. He might inadvertently vent his emotion on Sheryl, thus he thought that it would be better for him to visit the base another day.

Akira retraced his footsteps back to his house.

After Akira left, 2 girls arrived near Sheryl’s base. One of them was a girl by the name of Nasha, she looked just like a normal girl commonly found in the slum city. While the other girl was Alna.

Alna worriedly asked Nasha.

“Nasha, are you sure that it’ll be fine?”

“Don’t worry, I carefully picked this gang after gathering all the information that I could get. Even if we get rejected from this gang, they won’t kill us or take all of our possessions… Maybe.”

Both Alna and Nasha were hoping to join Sheryl’s gang.

Although Sheryl’s gang was a relatively small gang, it gathered a lot of attention from the young boys and girls in the slum city.

Starting from its boss, Sheryl, all the members of the gang were young boys and girls and there were even small children too. But even so, the gang was properly managed like a real organization and it had enough influence to provide some level of protection to its members. Moreover, news had spread through the slum city that Sheryl’s gang had successfully secured food and guns too. Thus, the reputation of the gang started to spread. People who heard about Sheryl’s gang normally had good impressions of it. So, many of them wished to join Sheryl’s gang in order to gain benefits.

Nasha smiled to clear up Alna’s worries.

“You were the one who kept rus.h.i.+ng it in the first place, remember? So why are you hesitating now?”

“W-well, that’s true, but still…”

“I don’t know the real reason why, but it seems that the boss of this gang prohibits all of its members from thieving or murdering other people. That’s why I’m sure they won’t tell you to pickpocket even after you get accepted. I’ll join first to see if that’s true or not and then you can join in later after I confirm it, that’s our plan, remember?”

Alna sounded apologetic as she said.

“Nasha, I’m sorry. It feels like I’m making you go alone to check the gang just for my sake. Please be careful.”

“It’s fine. I’ve always been thinking of joining this gang anyway, so this is a good chance to do that.”

Nasha then extended her right hand to Alna and opened her palm. Alna took out a few pieces of papers from her chest and handed it over to Nasha while making her grip on it.

Both Nasha and Alna did not think that they would be able to join Sheryl’s gang without any connection or money. And at the same time, they thought that they would have a better chance to get accepted if they had some souvenirs that they could give to the boss of the gang or the people working under her. So their plan was to use their hard-earned money to get a better chance.

As Nasha counted the bills that she received from Alna, she frowned and her face turned stern.

“90,000 Aurum!? Alna, you really overdid it this time!! Are you trying to kill yourself?!”

Nasha knew well how Alna got her money. This 90,000 Aurum was a huge sum that would drive any slum city resident into a frenzy if they were pickpocketed. It was huge enough to make someone kill for retrieving it.

Alna’s face distorted with fear as she replied.

“I know!! I did tell you too, remember?! I was really about to get killed!! Although I got lucky and was able to get out alive, it was really a close call!! I know what I’m doing is really dangerous, that’s why I’m rus.h.i.+ng you so that I can live without the need to pickpocket!! So that I don’t have to face that kind of thing ever again!”

Alna s.h.i.+vered as she remembered Akira’s image when he was chasing her and when he was confronting Katsuya’s team.

When Nasha saw Alna s.h.i.+vering, she hugged Alna to help her calm down. Alna’s s.h.i.+vers slowly died down thanks to that.

Alna then hugged Nasha back.

“I’m sorry, Nasha, please be careful there.”

“Rather than worrying about me, you should worry more about yourself. Make sure to remain hidden, okay?”

Alna and Nasha expressed their worries to each other before going their separate ways. Alna went to their hideout in the slum city while Nasha headed to Sheryl’s gang.

—*—*—*—

Akira spent his days training inside his house without even stepping outside. It was because he decided to stay in his house as much as possible until he got his augmented suit and regained Alpha’s support.

He thought that it must be one of his unlucky periods, that was also the reason why he got his wallet stolen. Thus he stayed inside his house as much as possible.

Akira had spent all of his luck when he met Alpha, so normally, he had no luck left with him. He always somehow managed to get through it with his hard work and Alpha’s support. But at that time, his carelessness wasted all his hard work, and since he did not have his augmented suit, he could not have Alpha’s support. Akira thought these were the reasons why he got his wallet stolen.

Although there was no proof for this, if only Akira did not get careless, or if he had his augmented suit with Alpha’s support, he might have not lost his wallet back then. At least the logic checked out and that was enough as a proof for Akira.

As for Alpha, she wanted to keep Akira inside since there was a good chance that the current Akira would react unexpectedly when faced with a problem. She had no plans to allow him to go out until he got his new equipment, or at least until he got his new augmented suit.

Since both Akira and Alpha agreed with each other on this, he decided to spend his time training inside his house.

Akira’s time compression training was doing well. Although it was not like it exponentially increased his fighting skill, his time compression success rate was increasing. He no longer stopped the training because he was too tired to move. But to be more precise, it was because Alpha adjusted the gap between her attacks depending on Akira’s level of tiredness.

Because of that, every time Akira finished his training, Alpha would have lost most of her dress to the point that she seemed more or less naked just like before.

Every time he failed to evade Alpha’s attack, a piece of her dress would flutter away and vanish as usual. Today too, as the last piece of her dress fluttered away, it vanished without making any sound.

As Alpha was floating there with a dress that was barely hiding any part of her body, she told Akira, who was breathing roughly out of tiredness, that the training had ended.

“Let’s end the training here. You did well in today’s training.”

Akira glanced at Alpha while trying to regulate his breathing.

“What’s wrong, Akira??”

“Well, about that dress.”

“Hm? Since it seems that you like erotic clothes, doesn’t this interest you?”

Akira sounded a bit annoyed as he said.

“That’s not it. I’m just thinking that although I’m starting to get a grasp on this time compression thingy, your dress has not changed much compared to the first time we started this training. So in short, I still can’t evade your attacks, and that really bothers me.”

Akira was displeased by the result of his training since he felt that he was not getting better at all.

Alpha smiled to rea.s.sure him.

“That’s normal. Even if you can slow down your time perception to 10 times, it’s not like your physical ability increases 10 times. It’s not easy to get yourself used to the lag that arises when you try to move your limbs and when they actually move. Moreover, you’ll have to get yourself to the point where you can move your body freely in that state. So there’s no way you can do it right off the bat. Don’t worry, you’re slowly getting there, I can guarantee that.”

“…Is that so? I don’t feel it though. But if you say so, then I guess that’s true.”

“Yep. So don’t worry.”

“Okay.”

Akira picked himself up and started to walk to his room for taking a rest. But when he grabbed the handle of the garage door, he suddenly stopped and turned back to Alpha.

“Turn back to your usual dress.”

“Sure.”

Since Akira told her so, Alpha replaced her tattered dress.

Akira was not bothered by her dress during the training since he placed his focus on dodging her attacks, or at least, he tried to do so. So when he returned back to his usual psychical state as he was about to exit the garage, that was no longer the case.

Just like usual, after his training, Akira took rest in his room while eating his meal. It was his usual heated frozen meal.

There was a separate kitchen in his house and it contained a stove for cooking. It was among the leftover stuff from the previous resident. But of course, it was currently not used for cooking anything. Akira had no idea how to cook and it was not like the previous resident also left behind his cooking skill there. Not to mention, the frozen food was not that bad either, so he had no plans to learn cooking any time soon. So, for now, it was just used to heat the frozen meal.

Akira’s living standard had definitely risen. But at least until he found pleasure in cooking, it was highly unlikely that he would ever use those cooking utensils.

As Akira was enjoying his meal during the short break before his study, he asked Alpha.

“What am I going to study today? Are we going to continue our talk about the corporations from yesterday? What was it again? Resource trading and distribution among the cities under the eastern Corporate Government?”

When someone said eastern city, Akira did not know that there were cities other than Kugamayama city until now. But thanks to Alpha’s education, he started to gather common knowledge and increased his intelligence. Although he was more knowledgeable than before, his knowledge was still considered as minuscule compared to the people living within the inner wall.

The reason why Alpha taught all of those things to him was more for her own sake rather than for Akira’s sake.

Alpha was actually probing Akira as she was teaching him. In order to complete her request, she needed him to be more knowledgeable so that he could easily resist any type of beliefs that might become an obstacle in completing her request.

So, studying was important to both Akira and Alpha.

Although their original plan was to study that day, Alpha decided to cancel it.

“We won’t be studying today, after all, it seems that a message just arrived from s.h.i.+zuka saying that your new equipment has arrived. So let’s go get them.”

“Oh!! I can finally start my Hunter work again, let’s go!!”

In order for Akira to complete Alpha’s request, she needed him to be stronger. So, she prioritized getting better equipment over his study.

Alpha smiled at Akira who looked elated.

Athena13: Big oof Alna, big big oof.

Silavin: Haha. Poor Alna. I don’t hate her. But, she was a little too greedy lol.

p4553r: I’m looking forward to seeing what would happen when Alna and Akira meet in Sheryl’s base. Will she die with grievances or will she become Akira’s aide??

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